Trade Workers Aging out of Profession

Trade Workers Aging Out of Profession

By: Morgan Hanson

American high school seniors are right now in the process of figuring out what they are going to do with the rest of their lives; college, military, work? Although, it is projected that a majority of this years graduating class will be attending college in the fall, you rarely hear students now saying that they are going into the trades, those such as, welding, electrical, plumbing, and mechanics. Although, the demand for these jobs is high, the interest in them is not, most students don’t think that they would be able to make enough money in a trade position. In this day in age, it has been said that an undergraduate degree could be considered the equivalent of a high school diploma. For today’s students, “....a college degree used to equal an entry level salaried position after graduation,....a college degree [now] typically earns an hourly position that reports to the salaried position - one level lower than pre-2008” (Farrington 1). Meaning that if going to a 2-year university to earn a trades degree, you would be making less than a person who went to a 4-year university, which right now has the lowest wage, this generation is deciding that, “....trade school is a waste of time” (Farrington 2), which could also mean an even bigger drop in the lives of the middle class as a lot of these jobs are associated with unions, most of the men and women who worked in the trades fields in the late 70’s and 80’s, where members of their work unions. According to the graph above, the number of union memberships between 1967 and 2012 dropped steadily, and with that the middle-class’ share of the nation’s income dropped as well. Meaning, that without more kid’s going to school for the trades, and most of the trade workers nearing retirement age within the next couple of years, the middle class could take another large hit.

Another large problem is that with the help of machines an has resulted in an incline in production and a decline in manufacturing jobs. This is another large reason that a lot of middle class American’s are running away from trades employment in order to make sure that their marginal cost of going to college and getting a degree, doesn’t outweigh their marginal benefit of getting paid at the end of the day, and if they are going to go to school for trade and pay the money and then be told that a machine can do their job better than them and get laid off then it really wasn’t worth the money.

A lot of people are saying that the middle class is “failing” do to the lack of trades workers present in the work force. Most of my family graduated in the 70’s, and most of them didn’t go to college, not because they couldn’t afford it, but because back then it wasn’t necessary. The opportunity cost of not going to college, and instead going straight into trade work, paid off for them, as most of them now have been working for the same company for 40 years, and are all about the age that they are going to retire. But, with the already scarce number of skilled trades workers, we are nearing a pivotal point where skilled trades professionals may no longer exist at all, “in 2012, 53 percent of skilled-trade workers in the U.S. were 45 years and older….and 18.6 percent were between the ages of 55 and 64” (Wright 1). Thus, meaning that if more young people don’t take up interests in trade work, when the 72% of the trades fields employees choosing to retire there is no longer going to be a trades workforce, as they are all going to be gone, which could cause real trouble for the United States economy.

Bibliography

“A College Degree is the New High School Diploma.” Forbes. N.p., 2014. Web. 29 Sep. 2014.

“Americans Skilled Trades Dilemma Shortages Loom as Most in Demand Group of Workers Ages.” Forbes. N.p., 2013. Web. 07 Mar. 2013.

@LOLGOP. "5 Ways Conservatives Make Workers Poorer, Sicker, And More Dependent On Government." The National Memo. N.p., 2015. Web. 29 Nov. 2016.